U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told reporters Monday while overlooking the swollen Missouri River that some revisions need to be made to the Army Corps of Engineers’ master manual but that it’s “not fair” to criticize the corps.

“They just didn’t count on two or three huge rainfalls,” Harkin said while standing with city and county officials at Prospect Hill. “If we didn’t have those rainfalls, their master plan would’ve worked.”

Harkin took a look at flood preparations and met with local and federal officials in Sioux City, Council Bluffs and Hamburg, Iowa, Monday.

Rainfall and snowpack have increased the amount of water in the Missouri River over the past 10 years to levels that haven’t been seen in more than 100 years, which Harkin said is another indicator that climate change is occurring.

Grasslands, wetlands and forests are disappearing as land is cultivated for farming. The construction of more shopping centers and parking lots speeds up the flow of rain water as it hits the blacktop, according to Harkin.

“I think it’s indisputable that something is happening to our climate,” he said. “Perhaps the basis of that manual needs to be revised for climate change that’s happening and the amount of snowpack.”

LibsRMorons commented:

donh commented:

It was your stimulous package that paved useless sidewalks all over the place …and dug up roads to put in new larger sewers because some mafioso union boss at a cement factory donated money to your campaign. . Let the drains clogg , and that will slow down the run off and save the tax payer at the same time… Right Tom ?

John03 commented:

Multitude commented:

How dare you make fun of our Iowa Senator! I recall him telling us vividly in past campaigns how he observed first-hand the rising of the oceans as he was flying his F-22 combat missions over Vietnam and Cambodia. His eagle eyes, known throughout the air force to be at superhuman abilities, allowed him to assess rocks, shorelines and other markers that he easily captured to a stereophotographic memory. Flying back over on Air Force One some years later (on a secret diplomatic mission which established relations with Communist China, a feat that Nixon later took credit for), he observed the same shorelines increasing. On the subsequent Shuttle missions, which he piloted (under secret cover, of course, and naturally to give credit to lesser astronauts), his eagle eyes observed even further encroachment by the capitalist-poisoned seas. In consultation with Ashtar Command, he’s arranged for constant monitoring of all the seas, and has access to exclusive data from the orbiting alien space platform to measure the temperature of each molecule of earth’s atmospheric gasses.

We’re fortunate to have such a brilliant mind working on the behalf of Iowa, let alone humanity.

randyinrocklin commented:

The Corp already revised their “bible” in controlling flooding to the likes of the environmentalist lobby protecting birds and fish over humans. It’s well documented, so don’t blame the Corp, blame the politiicians that made them do it, just like the sub-prime loans that the politicians MADE the banks to approve loans that would not otherwise qualify for a loan under normal practices.

randyinrocklin commented:

dunce commented:

The reports from Minot said that their last big flood was about 1881, well before we began large scale fossil fuel use. There has always been cyclical changes in the climate and man did not cause it, nature needs to be understood not controlled. The current effort to induce hysteria is in fact just another political scheme to collect taxes and redistribute wealth. Remember the Copenhagen climate conference where the african representatives were upset that they were not going to get imaginary damage payments that they could funnel into swiss bank accounts.

Tommy commented:

Can we blame Iowa for making America fat? High fructose corn syrup and corn oil margarine plus estrogen-laced soybeans to make our men girlie, and ethanol to jack our gasoline prices so we don’t go out as much.
Government subsidies strike again.

Granny commented:

Grasslands disappearing for farms? I think the good Senator is a few decades behind the times. Here in Vermont we lose a farm nearly every day. Hundreds of thousands of acres in California, once the truck farm capital of the US, lie barren and dried to a crisp because environmental laws protect a 2 inch fish.

Want to know why there is a lot of flooding this year? (We had quite some little bit here in Vermont.) A spring heavy on rain and an Army Corps of Engineers that has changed the way they do things.

AuntieMadder commented:

Well, of course it’s climate change that’s causing all the flooding. The climate is changing. It always has been changing. That climate has forever been changing is the only constant about it. Other than being forever stuck in a reactive position to climate changes, the only other problem with it is in believing that climate change is a recent phenomenon caused by activities of humans. It’s not…unless, of course, European monks and monarchy secretly drove SUVs prior to the mini ice age.